Front, Back, Side-to-Side: Arsenal Season in Review, Part I

By: Martin | May 26th, 2009

Okay, here’s the first part of my Arsenal “Season in Review.” I have made “Top 10 Lists” of good, bad, and indifferent things about Arsenal’s 2008-2009 season. Now, to explain, I defined these terms relative to expectation at the beginning of the year. So, for example, I would say our performance in the league this year was bad, although many clubs would be ecstatic at finishing in the top 4. But it’s bad for us because we expected more. To take another example, I put Adebayor on the “bad” list for this season–it’s not that he was an objectively bad player, but that after his breakout season last year, we expected so much more. It may be a bit complicated, but so is life, and we just have to deal with that.

Today we’re starting with the good–in other words, things that went very well, or better than expected, for Arsenal this year, in no particular order. Without further ado:

1. Champions League Run—The best bright spot on an otherwise disappointing season was our run to the Champions League semifinals, which was only the second time Arsenal has advanced that far in the competition. We had some impressive performances in the group stages, including the 4-0 win over Porto, and the penalty shootout at the Stadio Olimpico was the kind of high drama we football fans live for. We shouldn’t let the bitter taste of the humiliating defeat to United make us overlook everything we did to get that far. It helped maintain our status as an elite club, and will hopefully give the lads a lot of confidence going into the competition next season.

2. Andrei Arshavin—What else is there to say? We all knew he was a good player, but I don’t know that anyone thought he would be quite this good. He completely energized the team after his arrival from Zenit St. Petersburg at the end of the January transfer window. He can play almost anywhere, and brings pace, skill, creativity, and flair to an “attack” which for much of the season was all too happy to simply kick the ball back and forth in the middle of the field. 6 goals and 5 assists in 12 league games for the pint-sized dynamo. But an even more astonishing stat? Since Arshavin arrived, Arsenal has played 24 games. Arshavin started in 14 of those. In those 14, Arsenal is 11-3-0. In the other 10 games, Arsenal is 3-2-5. One of those, of course, was the FA Cup semifinal, when Arshavin was inexplicably left on the bench. I have a feeling his days of being left on the bench for big games are over.

3. Robin van Persie—For the reasons I explain in a piece which will hopefully be posted on the main EPL Offside page in the near future, I think Robbie was our player of the year this year. He stayed healthy (well, for him, at least), and really carried the team during the winter months. In the process, he overtook Adebayor as our top striker. 20 goals and 13 assists in 42 appearances for club this year, which is a return any striker in the world would be proud of. His contract is up at the end of 2009-2010, but here’s hoping he’ll re-up with us and stay at the Emirates for at least a few more years.

4. Nicklas Bendtner—I’ve already explained why I think Bendtner is underrated and is quietly developing into a quality striker. At the beginning of the season, I told everyone who would listen that Bendtner wasn’t good enough to play for Arsenal and I didn’t see what Wenger saw in him. But Bendtner really developed this year—it’s really not a stretch to say that if he gets first-team action next season, he can be a legitimate 18-20 goal scorer. The top goal scorer in the league this year had 18. So I was wrong on yet another player, bringing the tally to: Arsene: 3,456,721; Martin: 0.

5. Kieran Gibbs—England’s next left-back. The mistake that led to Park’s goal in the second leg of the Champions League semifinal marred what was an otherwise impressive season for the 19 year old. He took a huge leap forward in quality this season, and showed he’s capable of playing at a very high level. He may very well be pushing Sagna or Clichy for a place in the first-team sooner than you think.

6. Jack Wilshere—One of the more promising Arsenal youth players in recent memory. This season, Wilshere became the youngest player ever to play a league game for the club, a record previously held by Cesc Fabregas. He also became the fifth 16-year old to ever play in the Champions League. He won the Man of the Match award in a dominating Carling Cup win over Wigan (who played their first-team), but was too young to receive the traditional champagne. Shortly after turning 17 on January 1, he signed a professional contract with Arsenal. Despite only being 17, he’s reportedly going to be playing for the England Under-21 Team next season, and has an outside shot at making the team this summer. He could very well be a star in the making, and he’s a homegrown Arsenal product. Keep an eye on him, he may turn out to be great.

7. Alex Song—Yet another player I was wrong about. He finally started to come into his own down the stretch, and boy, does he look like he might be exactly what Arsenal needs. When he’s on his game, he is strong, tenacious and physical in the midfield. He runs around like whichever opposing player has the ball owes him money, and is not afraid to get chippy and knock them around a bit while going for the ball. When he and Cesc played together in the midfield, they seemed to fit together quite nicely, with Song’s holding, tackling, and pursuit abilities freeing Cesc up to try to find space, creep forward, and look for the through ball. Arsene: 3,456,722; Martin: 0.

8. Theo Walcott—Still with his blinding pace, Theo finally started to show signs of developing some other elements to his attack this season. His crossing and finishing, while still well below what we’d like them to be, upgraded from “terrible” to just plain “bad” this year. You may view that as damning with faint praise, but with Theo’s aggressiveness and speed, he doesn’t have to develop David Beckham-like passing control or Eduardo-like finishing—if he could just develop average skills in those departments, he would be a very dangerous player indeed. But he’s got to start tracking back, because at the moment he’s a real liability when the other side has the ball.

9. Manuel Almunia—quietly had a very, very good year. He doesn’t get much credit, but really, he didn’t seem to put a foot wrong all year. Unlike Jens Lehmann, Almunia doesn’t try to do too much and plays within himself, but is a good shot-stopper, organizes the backline well, and provides the team a bit of veteran leadership. And he was spectacular against Manchester United in the first leg, showing that he has the ability to come up big when it matters most.

10. The Kids—They don’t get a lot of attention, but I’m with Whitney Houston on this one. I believe that children ARE our future. And that we should teach them well and let them lead the way. Arsenal repeated as winners of the Premier Academy League Group A this year. And umm…take a gander at the league table. It wasn’t even close, we had 70 points, the second place team had 45 points. The boys are also on the verge of topping Liverpool for the FA Youth Cup later today. Objectively, I think you’d have to say our under 18s were the best in England this year, and hopefully some of those kids will be making first-team appearances in the future.

So there were quite a few bright spots in an otherwise disappointing season for us. I’ll be back tomorrow with the “side-to-side”–things that went just okay, or roughly about as well as we expected, for us this season. Then I’ll post the bad on Thursday, and a final wrap-up with some end of season awards on Friday. Then I’ll have a two-part “summer preview” over the weekend. Then I’ll actually try to get some work done.